Why am I having such a problem with this? (Warning, teenage boy stuff ahead)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
81

My mom started giving me age-appropriate books about sexual development when I was in elementary school, and then every few years would follow it up with another, more advanced book, always with the same, “Read this - if you have any questions, ask me.”

I never had any questions. A couple of times she asked if I did, and I told her that the books were very clear and I thought I understood everything. I think this was a good way to handle it, and it is what I will do when/if I have children of my own.

On the subject of masturbation, she simply told me that it was normal and natural, but something to be kept private. Sounds about right to me.

82

As a declining teenage boy (no longer a teenager this October) I went through what your son went through and being the 5th of 6 kids my parents knew how to handle my… growing instincts. My parents respected my habits, always knocking to come in and never mentioning the extended period in the bathrooms. My sister didn’t say anything either, I don’t think she was naive, she simply guessed what it was.

I found my dad’s stash, got caught and he moved it, but then I found it again. Teenage boys who know it is around the house are damn persistent, trust me. And even when it wasn’t, the Internet housed lots.

I’m not saying give it to him, but if you find it, leave it (with exceptions of course.) In fact, IMO I don’t think you should give it to him, all my friends who have sexually “open” houses seem to be MORE perverted. But it could just be my view.

83

Oh, and to give another idea of my relationship about sex with my parents, my dad’s birds and bees speach was “You shouldn’t do it before marriage, but if you do, use a condom.” Of course, he’s rather hippocritical(sp? bah).

84

Get the kid the current (April) issue of Playboy. Let him see the POM, Carmella, who is a cute brunette with a smallish natural chest, so that he doesn’t think bleached blondes with DD implants is the ideal of sexy beauty.

Safe link to Carmella:

http://www.wtam.com/jacor-common/globalphotos.html?eventID=12819

Either this way, or the kid will eventually find your hubby’s stash of gonzo fetish porn and will be freaked out!

85

**

That was funny as hell RTFirefly.
:smiley:

86

On the one hand I don’t think you should be open with your son and discuss such things. I mean, one of the biggest thrills of teen life is the quest to aquire porn. It’s probably the closest one ever gets to being on Mission:Impossible.

But you want some sort of ‘relationship’ with him.:rolleyes:

Anyway I suggest you read, and then maybe let your son read Portnoy’s Complaint by Phillip Roth. It’s is hysterical and pretty damn honest on the subject.

87

You’re missing out on something important: Condoms have a * shelf life*.

You have the talk at 14, and he manages to get around to doing something about it on Senior prom, that condom is going to be in potentially poor shape after slow cooking in his back pocket for 3-4 years. (yeah, you said top drawer, but it never hurts to ‘be prepared’)

My biggest issue with this is: I remember how incredibly hormonal I was. I remember how I didn’t make good decisions ELSEWHERE in my life. I was ‘lucky’ enough to go to an all boys highschool. It socially scarred me and ruined the first two years of college for me while I figured out what everybody else had learned in highschool.

As a result I didn’t lose my virginity til I was 21. That said, this whole thread seems to deminish the emotional impact of sex. (as does, I believe, the whole entertainment industry.) Yeah, it’s fun, and yeah one night stands are bound to happen, but the act is SO MUCH BETTER with the right person for the right reasons at the right moment.

There are other aspects of the horizontal mambo that need to be discussed with those impressionable youngfolk.

I’d start now, but at three months of age, the twins ain’t buying it.

88

Well personally I’m amazed. Y’all sound like wonderful parents compared to the assholes who raised me.

When I was just coming into my teens and started experiencing urges and hard-ons, I was really confused because it never happened before and just seemed to happen of its own accord.

(My parents divorced when I was 8, so you know)

So one day after this wierd occurence, Imentioned it to my Mom, with something neive like, “Sometimes it just gets hard. Why does that happen?”

Her response? Laughter.

I never thought of bringing it up to anyone ever again.

I never searched for porn. Never had any nudie mags or videos or internet. I just got by on my own.

As for my Dad, well his speech, given when I was somewhere around 16-17 was, “Always use a rubber, and if I’m a grandfather before I’m 40, I’ll kill you.”
The above is all the sexual advice I’d ever gotten.

The first time I had sex I was 17 1/2 with a girl who’d lost her verginity somewhere between 12-14 and had who knows how many partners. I was nervous as hell and had no idea what the hell was going on.
I’m of the mind that it is the responsibility of parents to teach their children about maturing and sex, because otherwise the kids might grow up clueless and sexually repressed.

IMO, as I said.

89

I got Playboy’s when I was 12. My stepfather put them in MY closet as a hint (but these were like '60s ones, so not that explicit). It took me years to deprogram myself that all women look like that & that all women are saying YES all the time. (Ever notice the women in Playboy aren’t saying ‘NO’ when you look at them?).

I would rather inform the kids to do things in private & at least give him a bit of privacy. Not having privacy myself during those years sucked.

90

Good going ivylass.
Nicely handled.

I have thought of another source of educational material.
If somebody has already mentioned it, then sorry, but it’s worth mentioning again.

There are many more magazines available for teenage girls than teenage boys.

They are age appropriate, and usually have a “wait til you’re legally above the age of consent, and both emotionally ready” stance, while still talking honestly (and non-judgementally) about topics that are a little off the beaten track; oral sex, homosexuality, masturbation etc.

In the UK the titles I’d be thinking of would include J-17, Bliss, Sugar, Cosmo girl, Elle girl and so on. Perhaps you could investigate similar titles?

You can flick through a couple and see which ones you feel happiest about. There is the added advantage of having no pornographic content, and also providing him with some insight into what girls REALLY think. :wink:

In my experience our magazines would always be stolen by boys wanting to read the problem pages…

Keep him away from FHM etc.
Their style is a very tongue-in-cheek misogyny, very laddish, not really what you want.
Although I don’t find the sex advice to be anywhere NEAR as graphic as the average Cosmo.
Whether you want to just say
“Oh dear, I meant to buy cosmo and picked this up instead”,
and leave it lying around,
or whether you want to actually hand it to him with a
“Well if you’re getting into girls, you might want some insider info”
type comment, is up to you.

BTW headchecked, “if your child is prone to sex” is the funniest thing i’ve read all day.

sorry.
i’m not poking fun, it was just an odd word choice, which made me chuckle.

91

Sorry, Testy.

92

Part of the joy of porn when you are a teenager was the quest for the porn. Hell, if Mom and Dad gave me porn, I probably wouldn’t have looked at it! (That is a blatant lie. If we found a ten year old copy of a nudie mag, in a ditch, with all the pages ripped out except for the advertisements for better sex videos that only hinted at showing nipple, we still horded those pages and thrilled at the chance to see naked ladies.) (And M&D never ever gave us the sex talk. I’m 27 and they still turn the channel if a sex scene comes on televison. They had 10 kids - so it wasn’t like they only stumbled onto that sex thing once…)

My point is that if the kid id going to look at porn, which he is, let him seek it out. If you raised him correctly, he’ll separate the wheat from the chaff and steer clear of the nasty stuff. As he gets older, he’ll find that there are better uses of his time than surfing the web for porn; that in general, girls are not impressed by massive porn collections (some tolerate more than others); and that he will get more overall sex as an adult if he treats women like people and doesn’t act like a sex-deprived yet sex-obsessed freak of nature.

My fiance’s father is an OB/GYN, and their sex talk in the family was very straightforward, clinical and by the book. She and her siblings have very healthy attitudes about sex. I recommend being frank and discreet - if they don’t want to ask questions at the moment, don’t force them to. But you should make sure they are on the up and up.

93

Hmm…I’m 16, and realized I’ve yet to actually have ‘the talk’ with the parental units. THe basics were explained in…4th or 5th grade, in health class (segregated by gender, 'cuz boys were still a little icky then), and the rest of the knowledge came VERY quickly due to an older sister and friends. That’s how, AFAIK, most kids learn about stuff: friends.

I personally wouldn’t advocate buying him porn, though. Most of my guy friends are…how shall I put this…horny beyond belief, and I know if I were a guy and my mom got me that…I’d be freakeed. If he wants to see naked girls, his friends will invariably have stuff, and/or he’ll steal some girl’s *seventeen or something - the ads in that often are boderline soft porn.

Anyway, first time I went to a mixed-gender party, in 8th grade, I think, my mom was just like… “Don’t do anything you woudln’t want to see your father and I do.” Vivid enough image to scare me.

Very recently, I started dating an older guy (20), which, when my parents found out about it, freaked them out. They tried to ‘set some guidlines’, which again equated to: No sex. Of course, I’d already had a similar conversation with my bf’s parents, and that was…horribly embarrasing. Don’t bring it up with dates he brings home, you’ll just torture them.

94

Sounds like he’s ready for The Straight Dope!

95

I never got the talk. My parents attemped it when I started on the Pill, but I assured them that I knew about the whole emotional-attatchment/risk thing. Of course, that was a good eight months after I lost my virginity (18).

If it makes you feel any better ivylass, the way you feel about your baby having sex is the way we young’uns feel about our parents having sex.

96

Ahh…it gets easier. My “baby” is 19. He thinks he knows everything. When he was younger, we never had Playboy lying around. But I’m sure he perused that and more at his friend’s homes. Believe me, at 14…the Victoria’s Secret catalog is enough. When my son was in his early teens, he was quite interested in the lingerie section in the J. C. Penney catalog. When the Victoria’s Secret catalog appeared in our mailbox one day, I’m sure he was thrilled. As was his dad. Just remember: Privacy is a BIG deal at that age. Always knock, just as you’d expect him to knock on your door. And don’t worry. He’ll ALWAYS be your baby.

97

YES! THAT’S the one I was trying to think of. My son read it when he was 13 or 14. Now at 19, he still has it in his bookcase. It deals with wet dreams, also. I recall my son telling me that what happened to the boy in the book was happening to him, too. That set up an opportunity to discuss related subjects. Yep, it’s embarrassing for both of you, but I’d rather have my kid want to ask me things then to get scrambled info from his buds. If you can sit down and talk…you got half the battle won. On the other hand, I also have a 17 year old daughter. Now THAT’S scary. :eek:

98

Just a couple of thoughts from a guy who was a father at 17

Give him condoms. Give him some more once a year or so. Never ask where they went, never look for them, ignore them if you see them. My parents found mine, made a big deal. Notice the line in bold above (yeah, there was a lot more involved, but that didn’t help).

Keep track of where he is. I plan on giving my daughter a cell phone when she gets a few years older. No, I’m not going to call her a lot, especially when she’s on dates or whatever, but I want her to know that I could call, and more importantly I want her to be able to call me. This would have saved my sister from some very bad things that her HS boyfriend did to her. She’s assisting me (I’m a single dad) in putting together the anti-teen pregnancy campaign for my kids.

The reason I say keep track of where he is, I lost my virginity at 10:30 on a Monday morning. My parents monitored “prime time” activity very closely, but somehow missed the fact that I left every day at 7am to go to a pool that didn’t open until noon.

Remember, no matter how good a job you’ve done instilling these values into your kid, you have no control over who they fall in love with. When they do, that person has them by the heart, and their set of values comes into play. Scary, eh? Teach him that EVEN IF the girl says “you don’t need a condom, I got it covered”, he still needs to wear one. Even if she’s on the pill, and ESPECIALLY if she’s using that !@#$%^&* sponge!!!

Also, ditto on the creepiness of getting Playboy from your mom, and Lovejoy nailed it, it was the challenge and the intrigue of finding the porn that was so cool. I remember I made a tape case (cassettes, I am so old) with a false bottom to hide my porn in. Just get him some and let him find it on his own.

Oh and Bluetrust, I loved that story. It was kind of like Forrest Gump meets The Biography of Ron Jeremy. Nice job. Shaved Asians indeed!

99

Somebody earlier mentioned porn addiction. I’ve never got that. I mean, how do they get it into the needles?

100

Wow ivylass , I think you handled the situation etremely well. Sounds as if you have done a good raising your son so far.

My suggestion is to make sure your son knows you trust him to be responsible, that he can trust you will not flip out when he does come to you and ask you a question.

I was raised to be accountable for my own actions. Mom always said, “you made your bed, you sleep in it.” By no means did I ever take that harshly, nor was it meant to be.

Had I gone to my parents when I was 14 and said, “I just had sex” (which I didn’t do, BTW), they would have said something along the lines of “did he wear a condom?”. No lectures, no making me feel as if I was bad.

If your son knows he can trust you, I think it’s a pretty safe bet that he will come to you if he has problems.